You Can’t Solve Irrational Trading Behaviors with Your Rational Mind

You can’t solve your irrational trading behaviors with your rational mind! When we deviate from our trading plan or our carefully constructed intuitive and discretionary trading processes, we do so not from our neo-cortex, our rational brain, but we do so from a survival part of ourselves.

Thus, when we wake up in the morning and look at yesterday’s trades, and wonder why the hell we traded the way we did, we are evaluating those trading behaviors from our rational mind. But in that moment, when we are making those trades, we are doing so from a survival part of our brain. At the Mind Muscles Academy, we call these parts of our brains NEMES or neuro meta-structures. These are parts of our brain that are triggered under certain circumstances that produce the trading behaviors that no longer serve us.

This is why no matter how much resolve, willpower and discipline we intend to apply to tomorrow’s trading, in that moment where a survival mechanism is triggered, it hijacks our behaviors and we again create trading behaviors that can be costly.

So the obvious question then becomes, how do we work with that survival part of our brain in order to produce better behaviors that produce consistent profits?

At the Mind Muscles Academy, we have a process called the Golden Keys. The first step in this process is “Awareness”. Rather than trying to fight our survival brain and stop its behaviors, we simply become aware of the mechanisms that trigger the NEME and the mechanisms it uses to hijacker our brain. Secondly, we “Accept” that part of ourselves and we make the assumption that it has a positive intent for our lives, even if the outcomes don’t support that conclusion. What this does is it allows us to freely become aware of what is going on internally, accept what is going on internally, and then create the foundation for creating new trading behaviors that will serve us a lot better..

When I am doing live coaching, I will work with the trader while they are trading a live account. We can then catch the exact moment that a NEME is being triggered, learn how it is triggered and learn the mechanisms it uses to hijack the rational part of our brain. What we discover is that this behavior, in the moment, has a positive intent for ourselves.

If there is one word that represents our mission at the Mind Muscles Academy, it is “Rapport.” Rapport with ourselves, rapport with the markets, and rapport with others in our community.

If you want to change persistent trading behaviors that no longer serve you, you can start by develop a conversation which builds rapport with that part that hijacks your brain with the resulting trading behaviors that lose money. Get to know that part of yourself in the same way an anthropologist would get to know the culture and behaviors of a newfound primitive tribe. Come to the conversation with an open heart and curiosity about how this part functions and what its positive intent is for your life.

With this approach, you are working on solving the problem at the source by using the process that creates the problem in the first place.

We use this approach in our Pathfinder course that is coming up this September, and our private coaching, along with our Mind Metrics application, and our group meetings.

Please let me know if you have any questions or comments about this post.

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Required Disclaimer: Commodity Futures Trading Commission: Futures and Options trading has large potential rewards, but also large potential risk. You must be aware of the risks and be willing to accept them in order to invest in the futures and options markets. Don't trade with money you can't afford to lose. This is neither a solicitation nor an offer to Buy/Sell futures or options. No representation is being made that any account will or is likely to achieve profits or losses similar to those discussed on this web site. The past performance of any trading system or methodology is not necessarily indicative of future results.
&nbsp CFTC RULE 4.41 - HYPOTHETICAL OR SIMULATED PERFORMANCE RESULTS HAVE CERTAIN LIMITATIONS. UNLIKE AN ACTUAL PERFORMANCE RECORD, SIMULATED RESULTS DO NOT REPRESENT ACTUAL TRADING. ALSO, SINCE THE TRADES HAVE NOT BEEN EXECUTED, THE RESULTS MAY HAVE UNDER-OR-OVER COMPENSATED FOR THE IMPACT, IF ANY, OF CERTAIN MARKET FACTORS, SUCH AS LACK OF LIQUIDITY. SIMULATED TRADING PROGRAMS IN GENERAL ARE ALSO SUBJECT TO THE FACT THAT THEY ARE DESIGNED WITH THE BENEFIT OF HINDSIGHT. NO REPRESENTATION IS BEING MADE THAT ANY ACCOUNT WILL OR IS LIKELY TO ACHIEVE PROFIT OR LOSSES SIMILAR TO THOSE SHOWN.